


It's Not Over (It's Never Over)

by Drake



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, I basically spoil the entire ending here, Spoilers, and uh, everything's not perfect, fix-it fic for Iron Man 3, it's not as easy as five minutes at the end of a movie, just a short thing to ease your rage about the ending, lots of them - Freeform, okay?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:22:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drake/pseuds/Drake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loose ends don't tie themselves into bows, and it's not an end, just a transition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not Over (It's Never Over)

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed watching Iron Man 3 and then hated the ending, so, at much encouragement, I rewrote it. Or, I guess, added onto it. Enjoy! (And drop a comment on your way out, even if it's just to rage about the ending with me c: )

There was a moment, frozen in time and etched in his mind, one of stolen light and one of a burning hand thrust into his armor’s chest, the two of them colliding and molding into one full of a searing weakness. Of one quick, easy twist and a slow painful death. A twitch that solidified the need to be free of that weakness, to rebuild himself and come out only stronger, not with strings attached that, once cut, killed him. So he trusted, and went under the knife.

It wasn’t over. It wasn’t an end, and it wasn’t healing. But it _was_ an upgrade. A boost in the amount of time he had before he went haywire, an attempt to ease the daily pain. And it was largely successful. Five minutes without the arc reactor wouldn’t kill him. Five days would. But he was far less dependent on it now. And the one he needed wasn’t such a brute thing. It would be more fine-tuned, tending to the smallest shrapnel left, because Yinsen had been right. Most if it was there to stay. The biggest, most dangerous pieces could be removed, but he couldn’t be rid of all of them, just like he couldn’t be rid of his past. His demons. This demon. So he chucked the old reactor into the ocean and built a new one, a better one. Because what would have been the point of that metal casing in his chest if all the shrapnel had been removed anyway? It wouldn’t heal, had been there for too many years to heal, had displaced too much to heal.

He made an exchange, instead. A discarded arc reactor for his two bots, bots who had tried to stay together even as their world fell apart, tried to hold onto each other as his house fell into the ocean. He took them and brought them home and cleaned them up and ignored sleeping like usual. Because yeah, he slept better than he used to, but there was a huge margin there of “better sleep” and “good sleep” and the nightmares still haunted him. _New York_ still haunted him. But he had nowhere to run – Malibu was gone, after all – and so he lived in the tower and shut himself in his workshop and _coped_. Coped through sheer creation and caffeine high and exhaustion. Coped with falling asleep so thoroughly at his desk that his dreams were a black mess of nothingness and the imprint of a wrench on his cheek when he woke up.

He was getting better. Slowly. Baby steps for a genius, and it was agonizing, but he was beginning to control it. Beginning to not panic at the first mention of _New York_ and _wormholes_ and _aliens_. He talked to Bruce – when he wasn’t actively napping – and learned breathing exercises to stay in control. The trick was the same, whether it was controlling blinding anger or choking fear. He sparred with Natasha and shot with Clint, practiced to make himself less of a punching bag outside of his suit and more of a fighter. He free-ran with Steve, built outlandish gyms just to see if Steve could traverse them all, and got upset when he could. And demanded to learn the moves. He lifted with Thor, because damn if the man wasn’t good inspiration – only if you were of the competitive sort – and worked on his strength. Surrounded by heroes who didn’t rely on metal and machines, he had always been the softest, the weakest of them all outside of their roles. So he worked on it. Made a… _distraction_ of it, Pepper would say. It wasn’t enough, but it was something.

And on the side? He built more suits. Implanted JARVIS in his ear so he’d never have to go through that terrifying silence in Tennessee again. Made permanent receptors and put them in himself, so a suit could always find him if he needed it. Made more portable suits – stronger than the Mark V, and smaller too – and quicker suits. A Clean Slate wasn’t a quit, after all. Just a restart. A chance to make everything for the sake of creation and not desperation. The new Mark I wouldn’t be a hunk of scrap metal made from fear and hatred. It would be better, stronger, faster, more capable. A tool to protect life, not destroy it.

Pepper knew. Knew he couldn’t quit, and knew he would still build suits. She just didn’t need to know how many, was all. And sometimes he wondered if she regretted giving up Extremis. Wondered if she would rather he fixed the glitch and not cured her of it entirely. How better to protect her, after all, if she was nearly indestructible? She chose too quickly, and she probably never lingered on it long enough to doubt herself. And now it was too late, but she was also a lot safer in Stark Tower with a band of superheroes wandering the building 24/7. With JARVIS and his security systems, automatic systems so much more advanced than the rest of the world because Tony _trusted_ his AI, let him have control of lethal weapons, didn’t doubt him for a second, didn't _fear_ him.

So he was coping. He was healing. It wasn’t as simple as a surgery and discarded garbage, and it wasn’t as simple as a lab-made cure, but he was human, and he was making progress and screw anyone who said progress was dangerous. He had a team, a suit, an AI, and Pepper to fight them down and pull him back up. He’d heal in time. He’d heal.


End file.
